Great State: Unexpected Holiday Guests

Vicki Toombs wondered, a few days before, if her five-pound bag of potatoes would be enough to feed everyone.

Then there are her other guests, the ones that tap on her sliding glass door by the kitchen all the time, the ones who eat her pecans, the same ones she looked for one cold morning in hopes of introducing them to the visiting reporter.

“We’ve always had turkeys,” said Vicki. “But this particular year has been a bumper crop.”

When they built their place 12 years ago the Toombs noticed a few wild turkeys hanging around.

But as the countryside in northeast Edmond developed, the birds moved to her place in greater numbers.

Vicki said, “Chances are, if we opened the door a half-dozen of them would come right into the house.”

Earlier in the day they foraged in the brush behind the house.

Along towards evening, they finally showed themselves.

They like to roost in the old pecan orchard at night.

The Toomb’s turkeys eat the nuts that cars run over.

Vicki and her husband don’t spray her trees or harvest the pecans either.

So a large number of turkeys have gotten pretty comfortable here.

Two birds, in particular, got so brave they started chasing cars up Vicki’s driveway and down nearby Midwest Boulevard.

“They’re not only brave. They’re talented,” she said.

Vicki recorded their antics one day earlier in the Fall.

She’s seen them stop traffic out on the road.

Vicki named these brave birds Rufus and Dufus.

They are the the ‘Dumb and Dumber’ of this turkey flock.

“They chase any car,’ says Toombs. “People will come down the road and stop just to look at the turkeys.”

The Toombs don’t shoot wild turkeys or eat them, at least not from this bunch.